It was the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and Ann Brightwell (nee Packer) had just crossed the finish line of the women’s 800m to take gold – and set a new world record.
In doing so, Brightwell became the first British woman to win an Olympic gold on the track, in a time of two minutes 01.1 seconds.
She told BBC Sport: “My husband, who was my fiance then, said to me, ‘you don’t realise what you’ve done’.
“I didn’t give it a thought at the time… but now I realise I played a very small part in women running longer distances.”
But the controversy hadn’t completely gone away. Brightwell knew all about the claims that had seen women unable to compete for 32 years after the 800m was removed from the Olympics.
Brightwell adds: “Men weren’t happy about women competing in these very high profile events…we were considered too frail and too delicate.
“And they took it upon themselves to make it look really bad. They were saying women were collapsing on the way round. But it was all a lie.”
After 1928, women’s middle-distance shrunk into the shadows for the next few decades.
The 800m was finally reintroduced to the Olympic programme in 1960 and, four years later, the then-22-year-old Brightwell went to her first Olympics, fitting training around her job as a teacher.
“Many people in my era either had to take unpaid leave or resign, or they got sacked because they were trying to juggle their sports with their career,” she said.
“My school was very tolerant towards what I was doing, so I was fortunate.”
